Groups that North Americans see different to the rest of the world

You've clearly put a lot of thought into Duran Duran.

 

Yea, I'm a fan and couldn't help but laugh at you using the "I hated what they represented" bias against them when everything has changed in terms of their respect. Not liking them and trying to claim they're not respected because their primary audience in 1983 consisted mainly of 12 year old girls are different things.

 

Well I apologize for assuming you detested Queen, but you don't see a difference in their standings in the past 20-25 years vs. the 1980s when they couldn't get arrested?

I am actually too young to remember Queen's heyday, "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" was on the charts at the time of my birth. I was just 12 when Freddie died and knew pretty much nothing about them as an active band except for We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions and knew they had that lead singer with a funny mustache (even if the stache was long gone by that time, but that was the image of Freddie). I watched a lot of MTV as a kid and don't remember any of their videos except maybe seeing I Want It All once or twice. But Wayne's World in 1992 started a renaissance for them that never stopped when it brought Bohemian Rhapsody back to the charts and everyone in my class loved the song and loved the band, plus MTV in the US also simulcast the tribute concert to Freddie that had almost every band who was big at the time paying homage to them and suddenly their discography started selling well again. The classics rose in stature and it seems like ever since then they've been one of the top classic rock bands on radio and I see people all the time who weren't alive when Freddie died who love the music. It's been able to transcend generations and this was even before the movie came out which only raised the stakes higher. I know Queen were practically nonexistant stateside around 1986-1991 but I do feel like the stature the band and Freddie himself have grown in the intervening years definitely make up for how poorly they were doing on the radio and MTV in the latter years of their career. Though I do feel like their latter material is criminally underrated in America, such as A Kind Of Magic and Innuendo, but the earlier stuff is played to death and also streams very well (the barometer of popularity in 2019) and their back catalog sells well.

 

Well, I can clearly see you're a fan of Duran Duran.

I mean, nothing's changed in terms of their respect outside whatever message board they have, but I'm glad they check off your boxes.

 

Last time Van Halen played Europe, they were the opening act for Bon Jovi, as I recall,

Sure, but (perhaps from this forum) I get the impression that Zeppelin is way more revered in the US. I've never heard anyone over here talk about 'The Mighty Zeppelin' or similar platitutes... to the general non-album buying listener, they are known for 'Stairway to Heaven' and little else. The Who seem way more popular as a 60s mod band, while in the US, the 70s 'Who's Next' seems to be regarded as their high water mark.

 

Here in Europe Cheap Trick is known for only 2-3 hit singles. I have the idea they are much bigger in the US (and Japan). Is this the case or do they have more of a cult reputation?

 

It's now called the Dow Event Center. It used to be called the Saginaw Civic Center. I saw Queen there twice; 76 and 77. Bob Seger was the warm-up the first time. Thin Lizzy was the opener their next time through. Both performances were kick@$$. But I always loved glam rock anyways. I wanted to see the opening acts as much as I wanted to see Queen. My friends were there to see Seger and TL.

My hometown paper used to have the UK album and singles top tens along with the Billboard charts. I always knew how huge Queen was in the UK. Their stature has improved because a bunch of Johnny-come-lately fans have (re-)discovered them? Please.

 

The Queen comeback began in 1992 with Wayne's World as well as MTV broadcasting the tribute concert, 27 years ago, this didn't just start three months ago when Bohemian Rhapsody was released to theaters. And again, BR has done very well at the domestic box office, not bad for a band Americans supposedly don't care about because they weren't listening to them when The Miracle was released.

 

As I said, a bunch of Johnny-come-latelys.

 

well some 25 year old Queen fan wasn't even alive when they were active (not counting this Adam Lambert nonsense) so you can't fault him or her for not coming out of their mothers womb until then, right? The fact that Queen have been able to transcend to a younger generation is quite impressive. Someone who doesn't pay attention to Billboard but just knew their songs through classic rock radio would assume that Queen were up there with Zeppelin, Floyd, Stones and Beatles and had multiple diamond albums and tons of #1 singles (well they did have two which is still impressive for a classic rock band) if they didn't know better because that's how much classic rock radio has shoved their music pretty much ever since their music became old enough to hit classic rock formats.

 

I'm just gonna leave this here by the front door.

 

I'm a little younger than most (born in 1974) but at least in the '80s (post The Game), Queen seemed pretty much forgotten. A couple of songs were played on my local radio stations (of course "We Will Rock You"/"...Champions" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love") but that's it. It wasn't until Wayne's World and Freddie's death that people started paying more attention to them. Now I can't speak for how popular they were in the '70s, but my impression has been that it's similar in a way to how people want to forget how popular Styx was. Each band had their time and then... nothing.

 

I'm born the same year you are and the feeling about Queen by my peers was that they were deemed "too gay" because Freddie was going full flamboyant. For new wave and synth pop, the gay and lesbian image is more accepting but not so much with rock since its completely two different audience. At least that was the attitude during the 80s, they wanted macho rock like Judas Priest and Motley Crue although in the end, it contradicted the image since one group was wearing women's makeup while the other had a lead singer in full butt chaps and later in his career announced he was gay

 

That is how stature is measured. It worked for Shakespeare, Mozart, the Beatles, the Stones, Floyd, Zeppelin, … quite a few others I suspect. How dare people interrupt your exclusive right to be a fan?

 

I don't know why the 'johnny-come-lately' comment should apply to Queen in a negative way - the exact same thing happened to John Lennon after his death in 1980. Hoards of new fans overnight came out of the woodwork. Suddenly, he was a saint - and he's enjoyed that reputation ever since. Or the Doors for that matter, at about the same time because of the No One Here Get's Out Alive book and Jim being on the cover of Rolling Stone. The Doors are unquestionably one of the most popular American classic rock bands of the '60s now, few would dispute this, yet they were almost forgotten a few years after Morrison's death.

 

I think Manowar owns this thread. A US band if you can believe it. Cannot get arrested or sell out anything bigger than a small club in their homeland yet play arenas and headline huge open air festivals worldwide. A joke among those few who even know heard of them in US and as big as Metallica pretty much everywhere. Even in Turkey, a muslim country! And I've seen iranian (!!!!) Manowar fans headbanging like crazy at the packed Moscow arena a few years ago. Now that's global stardom.

 

Russia also has it's share of national loves (Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Nazareth, Smokie, Boney M, Modern Talking) while someone like Bruce Springsteen would never even sell out a small theater here. Wonder why he never even played in RF.

 

Springsteen is too associated with America to make it big in Russia. The idea is rather absurd.

 

Well, some people indeed remember him as the Reagan era flag waiver due to Born in the USA, though it's absurd of course. But in reality, it's just because no Bruce song apart from Streets of Philadelphia ever got popular here. To many he's a 90's one hit wonder who walks around in this Philadelphia MTV vid.

 

To many where, in Russia?

 

The flavor of the month crowd is going to move on as soon as the film ends its promotional cycle. By the time it's in the bargin bin, the general audience will have forgotten all about Queen.

 

Of course. That's my observations as someone living here and a big Bruce fan who mostly gets weird looks if not blank stares whenever I mention him.

 

Like said before, the "Queen is an all time classic rock iconic band" thing goes back to 1992 when Bohemian Rhapsody was reintroduced in Wayne's World (the scene in WW was filmed when Freddie was still alive though the movie came out three months after he died, perfect timing). It was a case where their popularity skyrocketed almost the exact moment Freddie died, and they've sold a lot of albums in the US between 1992-2018 and a lot of younger people knew of their music even before the movie. I've likened and compared it to what happened to ABBA in the 90s in the US, and it fits. ABBA and Queen both were far more popular after the fact than when they were active in America.

 

Exactly like that!

Frankie and the Teens might count as the first boy band. They check all the boxes!

 

Apparently you have as well, as you seem to know exactly how they were viewed 35 years ago, how they're viewed now, and at all times in between.

Not sure why you hate them so much - teen girlfriend called you "Simon" once during a makeout session? - but you seem to regard yourself as an expert...